


This is What Love Is

by SleepyEye



Category: Cormoran Strike Series - Robert Galbraith
Genre: F/M, First Kiss, Love, One Shot, fluff n stuff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-22
Updated: 2018-09-22
Packaged: 2019-07-15 10:34:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16061321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SleepyEye/pseuds/SleepyEye
Summary: Not really any spoilers.





	This is What Love Is

Cormoran came back drenched and sore after a long day of tailing an unfaithful husband in a rainstorm. Robin had caught a cold earlier in the week, so he had offered to take the job on while she stayed inside to meet with clients and go over paperwork. He was exhausted, and freezing, and slightly jealous of Robin. This jealousy was short lived, however, when he came back to the building to the sounds of sobs echoing through the hallway. Robin quickly came into view, half leading half supporting a deeply distraught young woman down the stairs.

“He said he loved me,” the woman gasped, “He said- he said he loved me.” 

Robin nodded briefly to Cormoran in passing, and he shot her a sympathetic look before heading up to his flat.

Once inside, he quickly toweled himself off and put on dry clothes before grabbing a beer and a bottle of hard cider and heading back down to the office. He had recently discovered that Robin liked hard ciders, and had started keeping a six-pack of them in his fridge. Robin was sitting on the sofa when he came in, and accepted the proffered drink gratefully.

“How’s the cold?” Cormoran asked. 

“Doing better. I think tomorrow I’ll be good to go out again.”

“Rough case?” Cormoran asked, sitting down beside her.

“Yeah. Young one. Got pregnant at eighteen, gets married, catches him cheating two years later. Now she’s twenty, divorced, with a two year old and no place to live. I gave her our resource list for women’s shelters, but I think she was too distraught to register it.” She shook her head. “Man tells a girl he loves her and she’ll follow him like he’s the fucking pied piper. She kept on repeating it.” She made air quotes with her fingers. “‘He said he loved me, he’s the only one who’s ever said he loved me.’”

“The magic words,” Cormoran said.

“Meaningless words.”

Cormoran raised his eyebrows at the bitterness in her tone. 

“It has too much power to be meaningless,” he said, “Only something with deep meaning can be perverted to manipulate someone so profoundly.”

“It’s not always powerful. I love garlic chips, but I also love my mum,” Robin said, “Which of those meanings is correct?”

“So rather than being meaningless, it has too many meanings?”

“Yes. It’s like inflation,” Robin agreed. She sipped at her cider. It was quite strong, but she had discovered recently that she liked them stronger.

“That’s why I never say it,” Cormoran said. Robin did a double-take.

“What, never?”

“Right.”

“Not even that you love puppies, or tallboys, or football?”

“Nope. Because I don’t. I like them a great deal. But I don’t love them.”

“So how do you define love, then?” Robin asked. 

Cormoran considered. He had only said the words to a handful of people in his life. As a child he’d said it to his mother, his sister, his aunt and uncle, but around his teenage years he’d gotten embarrassed and the words had gradually become implied more than spoken aloud. He had said it once to Nick and Ilsa, in his toast at their wedding, tacked on at the end with a hope that they wouldn’t recognize the depth behind the words. Otherwise, it had only been Charlotte. Bleeding, dying, begging love. His love for her was violent, and it had left him torn apart. It had redefined the word for him, transformed love into something stronger than he’d ever felt before.

How many great poets had tried to describe this love? How many times had he poured over Latin verses, trying to find the right one to read to Charlotte that might show how he felt? But it wasn’t one of these verses that came to his mind. Instead it was one his aunt had often recited to him. He couldn’t remember where she’d got it from, but judging his aunt it was probably biblical.

“‘This is what love is,’” he quoted, “‘to lay one's life down for one's friends.’”

“Sounds abusive,” Robin said. 

“Never said it wasn’t. That’s why you don’t fall for people who’ll take advantage of it.”

“So according to that quote, love means death.”

“Love means giving your life and hoping the other person won’t destroy it.”

“Not many people I’d do that for,” Robin said. 

“Yeah, well, that’s why I don’t say it.”

“Never.”

“Nope.”

“There’s nobody you love.”

“Oh, I love people. There’s people I’d give my life for, sure. I just say it with actions, rather than words.”

“Explain.”

“I take Jack to war reenactments. I talk to Lucy about her PTA drama. I take your cases when you’re sick, and buy you hard cider, even though it tastes like sweetened nonsense.” Robin froze. Cormoran didn’t notice. “I visit Nick and Ilsa, and feed their cats when they go on vacations. And not because I want to lord it over people, or play the martyr, or even because I’m a good person, because I’m not, I’m a selfish bastard. But because I genuinely enjoy making them happy. Because if they’re not happy, neither am I.”

“You don’t like hard cider?” Robin asked.

“What?” He reddened as realization dawned. “Ah. I… I mean I don’t really mind it.”

“But you don’t drink it yourself.”

“No,” he admitted, “But you like them, so…”

“So you keep them for me.”

“Well. Yes.”

“Because you love me.”

“Well… I mean I wouldn’t use the word, but…”

A slow grin bloomed across her face.

“You did! You said it! You love me!”

Cormoran rolled his eyes with a look of long suffering.

“Fine,” he said, “But it doesn’t mean… I mean I don’t want…”

Robin took a moment to relish his discomfort, then came to his rescue. 

“Cormoran. It’s okay.” He stopped his hemming and hawing and looked up at her. “I know you don’t want to marry me and have my babies. It’s okay.” She reached out and touched his hand, causing a wave of electricity to shoot from his fingers to his chest. “I know what you mean.”

“I mean when you’re happy, it makes me happy,” he said, “That’s all.” He wished she’d move her hand from his. Maybe then he’d stop blushing so badly.

“That’s good,” Robin said. Now she was turning red as well. “Because you make me very happy.”

“Oh… Yes?”

Something in the room had shifted. The air around them felt heavy and charged. Robin looked down at her lap and bit her lip.

“Yeah.” It came out as barely a whisper.

“I’m glad.”

“You know… You know what else would make me happy?” Her voice was hoarse now, and she wasn’t entirely sure where the words were coming from.

“What?” 

She was looking at him now, and it was too much, too powerful, her eyes were too close and too dark, but he couldn’t look away. And now she was moving closer, leaning towards him. Her nose touched his, and he shut his eyes…

Their knees bumped and Cormoran felt something very cold spreading over his thigh.

“Jesus!” he yelped.

Robin jumped back. In leaning forward she had spilled her cider over them both.

“Oh my God,” she said, leaping up, “I’m so sorry. Here, let me grab a towel, or…”

“It’s fine.” He set the now empty bottles in the bin and took the towel she had offered him. He attempted to daube at the stain on his jeans. Robin stood with her back to him, her hands on her face, trying to pull herself together. 

_ Stupid stupid stupid, what was I thinking, caught up in the moment, thank God the bottle spilled before I took it too far, stupid stupid stupid. _

“Robin?” 

Cormoran’s large warm hand appeared at her elbow. Robin didn’t turn. She could feel the heat of her face burning through her hands. “Robin, it’s okay. It’ll wash out.” Robin turned, but didn’t meet his eye.

“You know that’s not why I’m embarrassed,” she mumbled. 

“I do?” he asked.

“I shouldn’t have...”

Cormorans hand came up under her chin. 

“What makes you happy makes me happy,” he murmured. Then he cradled her jaw in his hand and guided her into him, bringing his lips to hers. 

Robin let herself fall into it, the feel of him, his warmth and softness, gentle, firm, and rough around the edges. Her hand came up to the nape of his neck, where his hair was still damp from the rain. 

Then she caught herself and pulled back quickly. Cormoran dropped his hands like he’d been burned. 

“I’m sorry,” he said. But when he looked up she was smiling, beaming from ear to ear.

“No, no,” she said, “It’s not… I’m sick,” she explained, “That’s all, I don’t want you to catch my cold.”

Cormoran smiled. She could feel his breath against her mouth.

“I think I can risk it,” he murmured, then pulled her in again.

**Author's Note:**

> I was inspired by Cormoran's thoughts on saying "I love you," and how saying it seemed to belittle what he'd been through with Charlotte.


End file.
